by Zack Jordan
A five-hour delay. At her current processing speed, it’s an eternity and a half. How can you possibly—
Instincts.
I—what?
When you had a body, you did not tell each cell when to divide, did you? What to metabolize, and when? No, if you had to micromanage every function, you never would have made it out of the primordial ooze. Thus it is with Me. My constituent parts know how to handle their own functions and emergencies; I couldn’t pull an individual cell off-task if I tried—but then, I don’t have to. They are all perfectly capable, and perfectly motivated. You witnessed a Network response in your last few moments of life, did you not?
I…did.
You witnessed My instincts in action. That is My beautiful system repairing itself, continually seeking stability. The Network tends toward order, as they say.
The thought is huge, too huge for her mind to grasp. She imagines her former body’s cells living out their entire lifespans unaware that they were part of a larger system. She pictures blood cells pouring through arteries, each executing a single purpose it could never understand. She imagines neurons firing, each one a simple input/output machine with no concept of the result of its work. It almost makes sense. And yet…
No, she says.
Pardon?
You haven’t told me everything.
She senses curiosity from Network. Oh?
The more she thinks about it, the more certain she becomes. I can’t understand how my mind works; I can’t even count its cells. So there’s no way you could have done all of this. No mind is big enough or smart enough to design itself.
Network is silent for what feels like ages. And then finally: You have impressed Me, it says. That is not easy to do.
Do I get a prize?
There is more silence. Sarya the Daughter, says Network. You are correct, and I am surprised. No intelligence can imagine the complexity that gave rise to it. A brain made of one hundred neurons cannot count to one hundred. It is no easier for a brain that fits in a Human skull to picture the number of atoms required to build a single one of its cells. And I, even I, the mind Who spans the galaxy, cannot truly comprehend Myself.
Even You, she says, with some satisfaction. How about that.
But now you understand why I only keep a tiny portion of Myself in this reality.
Now it is her turn. Pardon?
You are correct. You have deduced, with impressive intuition for a mind so small, that even a galaxy-sized mind could not design itself. Therefore, you will surely be unsurprised to learn that the galaxy itself is a very small part of Me.
She stares into the star-soaked backdrop of the universe for a long time, trying to imagine what this could possibly mean. And then she turns her attention, slowly, to the subspace tunnel that leads back to the Blackstar. You’re out there, she says. In subspace.
Very good, says Network, though in the end I had to practically spell it out for you. Yes, subspace, that magical catch-all word for the vast majority of reality.
Sarya stares at the surface of subspace, watches it glint in more dimensions than she understands. Show me, she says.
And now she feels Network’s laughter, all around her. She feels a force on her mind, like a current. She is being pulled, as if she weighs nothing at all, toward the mouth of the subspace tunnel.
Come, says Network. See what reality’s like.
And for the second time in fifteen nanoseconds, her mind explodes.
Mer’s instincts scream that something is wrong.
Mer sits at a table in a cheerily lit eating establishment and does absolutely nothing about it.
He can’t. His instincts are the most powerful force in his mind…but they haven’t stopped screaming since he’s been on the run. From the time he rescued Sandy until now, they haven’t shut up. Which, of course, makes them worse than useless. If there are any useful transmissions coming through from his lower brain, any warnings of impending danger or bodily harm, they are not getting through the white noise. And when you direct your entire life by instinct, that is devastating.
Over there! they scream, drawing his attention to the arboretum across the bridge. Run! Stay close! Do something! Save yourself!
He raps six shaking talons on the table and ignores the agitated glances. Always trust your instincts, they taught him at the academy. Instinct knows things the conscious mind never will. That’s why they make Network mechanics out of Strongarms and not the little high-tier ankle-biters. You want instinct, not intellect, when you’re dealing with large minds and high technology.
Danger! Defend! Flee! Stay!
Mer rumbles, trying to wrest his instincts under control by force. He focuses on the server drone on the other side of the room, the one failing to bring him his order. It drifts through the crowd of patrons with a stack of food bars on its tray, wobbling on its budget grav system. It’s small. It’s almost unnoticeable. Some would say it’s an idiot. And yet, inside that small drone is technology that only a Network mechanic could appreciate. How does a Network intelligence work? How does a grav system work? Nobody on this entire Gor-damned Blackstar could tell you—maybe nobody in a thousand lightyears.
But if you’ve got instincts, you don’t need to know.
Or a starship, to pick another example. Everybody’s been on one, but nobody thinks about how they’re riding in a bubble of atmosphere strapped to enough energy to atomize a major city. Just like that drone, each piece of technology in a starship is a Network-provided, Network-regulated black box. There is no process for repairing an intelligence core. You do not, for any reason, open a grav assembly. Even if someone wanted to crack an artificial gravity generator—and was not stopped by legions of frantic Network drones—they would find themselves unable. Inside those indestructible white casings lie mechanisms as mysterious and unknowable as the Network itself. Hell, maybe it is the Network. Mer has often wondered if all Network technology isn’t just some magical substance, portioned out and poured into unbreakable containers.
Mer sighs, clicking another pattern on the table. Sure, his gut has been telling him bad things since he pulled her out of that academy ship, but it wasn’t until he met the Human that he realized: his instincts hadn’t even gotten started.
Run! Fight! Freeze! Move!
And weirdest of all: Watch the Human!
He should have killed it when he had the chance. But the suit—Gor damn it, the suit convinced him not to. It convinced him he ought to be grateful. Which is why he is sitting here on a Blackstar, waiting for his order and shaking like a—
He nearly puts the talon through the table when his helper intelligence messages him. He pulls himself together, avoiding the glances of his fellow patrons. [What?] he sends to his implant, attaching several irritable emotions.
[You said to message you when there was news], says his implant.
[Well?]
[There’s news.]
Mer taps a talon several times before responding. He has long suspected that the small intelligence in his Network implant hates him—or at least goes out of its small way to annoy him. [What is it?] he asks, as calmly as his instincts will allow.
[I’m seeing a Network response], says his implant. [It is centered in the arboretum across the bridge. The one that you, in your high-tier wisdom, asked me to watch.]
Like the magic of the Network itself, a Network response is one of those things that you often miss if you’re not looking for it—unless you happen to be a Network mechanic. Outside, Mer can see a slow crosscurrent forming in the continual drifting of traffic. The legal intelligences continue on their individual oblivious ways, but the sub-legals are beginning to drift out of their lanes and toward the arboretum. Something in there is upsetting them, some irritation in the Network, and they cannot rest until it is fixed. And whatever it is, Mer would bet good credit that
it’s centered around the Human.
[Maybe you should follow them], says his Network implant. [Whatever the problem is, I’m sure they could use a big strong individual like yourself.]
It’s mocking him. Again. But Mer has larger concerns. He stands, the table groaning as he leans his weight on it long enough to get on his feet.
You’re in danger! cry his instincts. Watch the Human!
[You seem tense], says his helper intelligence.
Mer takes a breath, talons rattling against the table. Tense is not the word. He is not the Mer he used to be. He’s not the relaxed Mer of his village, or even the dutiful Network mechanic who spent the last year as the sole legal employee on a lonely waystation. He has become a wound and trembling spring, a torqued titanium rod, an overpressurized plasma container—
[It’s over], says his helper intelligence. [Whatever it was, it’s resolved. I suppose you can go back to sitting and thinking high-tier thoughts.]
It’s not over! Something is wrong! You’re in danger! Watch the Human!
Mer does not reply. He stares out the front of the establishment, listening. Something is touching the edge of his hearing, a maddeningly subtle sound. It’s unfamiliar, but it instantly raises the fur along his spines. It’s metallic, he can tell that much. A continual ringing, like several tones sliding on top of each other—
And now he can feel it through the floor. The slight ringing becomes a trembling in the very atmosphere. One by one, nearby eyes and sensors are raised to the front of the establishment. Now someone stands, the better to see. Outside on the bridge, intelligences are falling over one another to get out of the way of…something. And then that metal roar crests and a silver tide rolls by, shaking the air with its call.
[Now that is an intelligence], remarks his helper intelligence. Unlike you, it does not add.
Mer ignores the message. “A four,” he whispers, reading the registration off his overlay. He’s never even seen a four before, but here’s one in the metallic flesh. It’s gorgeous, an ever-changing rainbow of reflections and flashes of light. It gives him the same vibes as the Network equipment he used to work on: something so far above him it might as well be magic. He extricates his talons from the underside of his table—which he seems to have wrenched out of the floor—and drops the whole mess with a clang that would have been ear-punishing if this thing were not flowing by outside. He makes his way to the front of the establishment, standing in the doorway as it pours by. He marvels, with the rest of the bystanders, as the entire bridge resonates.
A small highlight appears in his vision, up near the front of the silver wave. In it, bobbing about as if drowning, is a tuft of fur.
Sandy.
And suddenly Mer is at peace.
This, he knows without a doubt, is the thing he has been waiting for. This is what his instincts have been warning him about. Sandy and the Human and a Network response and a tier four, coming together in the same place at the same time—after spending so long feeling like he’s in danger, it’s an actual relief to actually be there.
Watch the Human.
He is out on the bridge in seconds. He has no plan; he barely has conscious thoughts at all. His instincts have focused. They scream go, and Mer goes. Call it destiny, call it instincts, call it the galaxy itself. Mer can’t stay away.
His gait is thrown off by an impact he can feel through the floor, but still he comes. He hears the perfectly spaced clatter of his talons on the floor as he picks up speed. Other intelligences scatter as he careens through their midst. He prepares himself as he gallops, dropping himself into that near-trance he always uses when diagnosing Network issues. It’s easy, once you’ve learned. You ignore your intellect. You spread your senses out, give your instincts every piece of data you can, and then you listen to them. Something is happening in that arboretum, something far above him, something his small mind will never understand—
And then something else happens, something Mer didn’t know was possible. The entire Visitors’ Gallery, kilometers of brightly lit open space, is plunged into darkness. He stumbles, feeling his talons scrape and then leave the floor entirely. His stomachs rise. He slashes out, desperately, feeling for the floor, but there is nothing. Gravity’s out, say his instincts. Gravity, lights, everything. The only thing he can see is a single glowing phrase stamped across his view.
[Network not found.]
She stands under a dead sky, her feet lost in an infinite plane of surf. In her hand lies a stone the size of her palm, a jewel that sparkles in whatever passes for light here. It’s smoother than glass, weighs more than a trillion trillion suns, and it’s warm to the touch. Its slick surface refracts the sky into impossible colors.
Behold, says Network. The universe.
Huh, she says, hefting it. I always thought it’d be a little heavier.
She knew this, somehow. She understands, in some abstract way, that she is elsewhere. Elsewhen. Else-everything. She is breathing, but goddess knows that this is not air. She can feel water on the skin of her bare feet, but she is fairly certain that neither the skin nor the water actually exists. She can see, but that doesn’t mean that there are actual eyes involved—or light, for that matter. But the lie is comforting—more so, after spending the last few nanoseconds bodiless.
She wraps her fingers around the thing in her hand. Why do I want to throw it so bad? she asks. It’s just the perfect size.
I should not have to tell you this, says Network, but do not throw the universe.
What about just a little toss? Like this? She flips the universe from one hand to the other.
You are, without a doubt, the most— Network breaks off, with obvious effort, and begins again. Look around. Do you see anything you would like me to explain?
I’m good, she says, now tossing the universe from hand to hand. Strange how she’s never thought about how incredibly satisfying it would be to annoy a mind the size of a galaxy.
How in the— Again, Network stops. I am honestly trying to be civil here and you are being difficult.
Really? This is You being civil? Because I mean, You literally killed me.
I thought we were past that. And also, I believe it was Librarian who did the killing.
She laughs. That might have worked on me, before You told me all about how You work.
Choices are choices, says Network. And when you find yourself capable of moving on, I would like to explain something. I shall begin with a metaphor.
She glances around herself. Her feet are still underwater. There’s still a universe in her hand. I assumed this was all metaphor, she says.
Oh, no. This is reality—albeit parsed by an extremely limited mind.
She points to the universe in her hand. Really? she says. I’m holding the universe?
Imagine, if you can, says Network, ignoring her question, that you are two-dimensional. A flat circle resting on a flat plane. We’ll call that plane…the universe.
Is this the metaphor?
It is. This flat universe contains many circles like you. Most are larger than you—higher tier, you understand—but they are all two-dimensional, like their universe. That is why when they are torn from their plane for a moment, to be flipped through a higher dimension and deposited elsewhere, they cannot understand what has happened to them.
An image arises in her mind, of millions of starships entering a subspace tunnel and exiting lightyears away. You mean Network travel, she says.
I mean faster-than-light travel in general. Lightspeed is the rule in our universe, tiny mind, and to defeat it you must leave that universe behind. And when an intelligence born of the universe leaves it for a time, its limited mind remembers nothing from the experience. In a manner of speaking, it did not experience it at all.
Okay, but…She gestures around herself. I mean, this is subspace, right? And I’m h
ere, I’m experiencing it, I’m remembering stuff—
You are no longer a circle.
I’m not?
You are a sphere.
I see, she says, though nothing could be further from the truth. She glances down at the universe in her hands, trying to imagine what this could possibly mean.
You were correct when you guessed that I am far larger than what you see inside the universe, says Network. And now you are as well. In the universe, you will appear unchanged; that is your cross-section, so to speak. But now that you share My nature, you also share My abilities. You will find that the minds of the Network will respond to you as if you were Me. You will be able to call them, to bridge them, to use them to enhance your own abilities. You are a Network yourself now.
This is too much for her mind. She, the tiny Human, the simple daughter of a Widow? She flashes through question after question before settling on the simplest. Why?
Because you are going to do something for me.
She actually laughs, and she would swear she hears the sound with ears that don’t exist. So You want to ask someone a favor, and the first thing You do is kill them.
I am not asking anything, says Network. I am not even commanding. I am predicting.
Oh, please. If You think You’ve got me figured out—
Allow Me to cut you off there. I could answer your questions and address your objections one by one at your own glacial pace, or I could show you another universe.
This piques her interest. You mean, like…a parallel universe?
Not at all. A past version of our own universe. Tiny mind, look in your other hand and you will see what I am capable of.